Allow control slash commands like /permission and /fork during an active run

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Mar 19, 2026 by DicksonWu654 Closed May 10, 2026

What feature would you like to see?

Certain slash commands should act as steerable control-plane commands even while Codex is actively running, instead of being rejected until the current run completes.

In particular:

  • /permission
  • /fork
  • likely a few other session-control commands

Current pain

Right now, if Codex is busy and I try one of these commands, the UI effectively says I cannot do that right now.

That forces an awkward choice:

  • wait for the current operation to finish
  • cancel the current operation just to issue the command

This is especially frustrating for /fork. Forking is often exactly what I want to do mid-run when I realize I want to branch the work without throwing away progress or waiting for a long operation to finish.

Expected behavior

Commands like /permission and /fork should be steerable during an active run, similar to other in-app steering behavior.

Possible semantics:

  • /permission should open or update permission state immediately, or queue as a high-priority control action for the current run
  • /fork should create a new fork from the current conversation state without forcing me to cancel the active operation
  • if a command cannot be applied instantly, Codex should handle it as an interruptible or queued control action rather than a hard rejection

Why this matters

These are not normal content prompts; they are session and workflow controls.
Blocking them behind "wait until the run finishes" makes the UX worse in exactly the moments where users need the most control.

Scope

I am mainly asking for this in the Codex app, but the same principle should apply anywhere Codex exposes slash commands.

Additional information

This feels like a broader product rule:

  • control-plane slash commands should remain available while a run is active
  • only commands that truly cannot be reconciled with the current run should be blocked

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